


all this devotion

by o_gets_pegged



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (Consent very clear still; don't worry), Alcohol, Cunnilingus, F/M, Implied Twelfth Doctor/River Song, Piano Sex (Past‚ Implied)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 12:54:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29278779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/o_gets_pegged/pseuds/o_gets_pegged
Summary: It's been too long since the Doctor's seen Missy, but doesn't shagging an old friend qualify as a "necessary visit"?(In which: the Doctor bends the rules, Missy gets her kisses, the Doctor gets somewhat angsty).
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Twelfth Doctor/Missy
Comments: 16
Kudos: 34





	all this devotion

**Author's Note:**

> thank you to freddie for reading this over, even if i was somewhat stubborn in my comma usage. title from florence + the machine's "never let me go."
> 
> also, i'm alive, and capable of writing now!

_No more unnecessary visits,_ he’d promised Nardole, and it feels like torture. She doesn’t ask for him until Monday, and he sends Nardole to fulfill her requests even though she sends him a frowning emoji via psychic paper afterward. _No more unnecessary visits,_ even when a student writes something he thinks she’d really find quite funny, even when he’s lying on his back at midnight thinking of her, even when he’s sulking at his desk attempting to justify thirty minutes with her. She needs company. She needs enrichment.

_No more unnecessary visits,_ but this feels necessary. He longs to see her. He _needs_ to see her.

Nardole is off getting orange-flavor Oreos and if the Doctor times his visit correctly, he won’t even notice his absence.

He doesn’t let himself think on it too much longer. If he thinks, he’s likely to make a rational decision, and he has no need for rationality when it comes to Missy. He blinks, and finds himself standing in front of the Vault door, three out of four locks released. _No more unnecessary visits._

The Doctor finalizes the opening sequence and steps inside.

Missy is seated at the piano, the lid closed over the keys. The Doctor’s breath hitches at the sight of her, after so long without contact. (How long has it been? He tries to calculate and comes up short, despite his lifelong love of maths. The days blurred into each other.)

“Good evening,” he says.

“Hm.” She lifts the lid, presses a piano key. The sound echoes around the empty space. She stands up.

The Doctor strides to her, doesn’t dare touch her, smells her breath: she’s been drinking, but not enough to get her drunk, get her tipsy. Not her. Not a Time Lady. “Where’d you find the whiskey?” he says. He wants to kiss her, taste the alcohol on her saliva.

Missy smiles, her teeth flashing in the bright light. “Let a girl keep her secrets.”

Missy's too old to be a girl, and she's a prisoner, and she shouldn’t have secrets. The Doctor knows this; he doesn’t comment. “Good day?” he asks. Finds a seat on the piano bench.

“Good week,” she says. “You left me alone.”

A week. _No more unnecessary visits,_ and he lasted a week. He’s beginning to think Nardole was right: he has got a problem. “I’ve had an awful one. Thanks for asking.”

She rests a hand in his hair. Kisses his forehead. He can feel the waxy smudge of her lipstick, newly applied, and he thinks about how Nardole will mock him for it later. “Let me help.”

The Doctor lets himself consider it for a moment, then another; kissing her neck, down to her breasts, sinking into her down-mattress with Missy as they giggle like schoolchildren against each other’s lips. It’s a wonderful fantasy, but nothing more. “No, thank you,” he says.

She unpins a strand or two of her hair with a flourish of her wrist. Her fingers are slender and graceful, from either the piano or something more sinister; he finds he doesn’t care as much as he should. “I won’t offer again,” she says.

“You shouldn’t.” The Doctor leans forward despite himself, catches the scent of whiskey again. “You’re not drunk?”

Missy raises an eyebrow. “I had a glass, Doctor, seriously.” She waves at her gut. “Innate regeneration, or whatever.”

“It’s not—”

“Who aced biology?”

He laughs, lets her sidle closer, doesn’t even protest when she drops onto his lap. He finds he’s gotten used to her smallness. “You,” he admits.

Missy nods. “Very good.” She rests her forehead against his, presses her palm to his chest. “Doctor,” she whispers, her voice quiet, soft, gentle, in the echoes of the Vault. She redecorates, occasionally, though she hasn’t in years. Her last theme was Art Deco. Before that, Bohemian. Before that, something Victorian with a bed that stabbed him in the waist several times (he made her get rid of _that_ after a few nights). “Doctor, Doctor,” she says again.

“Mistress,” he says. He kisses her nose, her cheeks, finds her lips. She licks too much, and he finds he likes it; it’s better than the biting. His fingers fumble at the buttons of her blouse, pulling them free.

“What happened to ‘no, thank you’?” she teases, laces her fingers in her hair. “God, I love the volume. I hated when it was short.”

He makes a face at that, doesn’t dignify it with a response. “I changed my mind,” he says, to the first statement. He tosses her blouse on the floor and begins work on her many under layers: padding, corset, combinations. “Why can’t you just wear a bra?”

Missy bounces in his lap in a way that makes his trousers uncomfortably tight. “Don’t like them. Tried them, back with… Tried them. This is better. Keeps my posture, too. And you like it.”

He throws another layer away. “I most certainly do not.”

She finally begins on his jacket, his shirt. “You like uncovering me. Your mistress. A veritable archeologist, you are.”

“You’re not that old,” says the Doctor, to be kind. He remembers River, his archaeologist, her blonde curls clouding around her face. She liked Missy, too, and despite herself, Missy liked her back. He unlaces her skirt, eases it off around her hips, and she kicks it away.

She kisses his bared collarbone, slips his shirt off his shoulders. “To bed,” she prompts.

He fiddles with the lace of her combinations, traces the pad of his finger across the delicate arch of her collar. “On the piano, again?” he asks, hopefully. Until now, he’s been able to steady himself with the sound of her voice, but now that she’s brought it up, he is terrifically, achingly hard. They’ve fucked on the piano, more than once—of course they have, there was a piano, and Missy, and the Doctor, and it was a prophecy waiting to be fulfilled. Fucking on the piano is uncomfortable, and annoying afterwards, but it’s fucking nonetheless.

“The bed,” she says, more firmly. As if showing him some unexpected mercy, she reaches into his pants and gives his cock a warm-up squeeze. He bites down on his bottom lip, contains his whimper. “Carry me.”

“Absolutely not.”

She rolls her hips, grinds down on him purposefully, until he squeaks. “Carry me,” she says again, and slings herself around so his arms are looped around her legs. She flutters her eyelashes, and he gazes at those brilliant, striking eyes.

Despite his protests, the Doctor carries Missy to bed. She loops her arms around his neck like a child, peppering kisses to his shoulder and giggles the whole way there, and he is more pleased with himself about the whole affair than he strictly should be.

He tosses her down onto the mattress and she shrieks, throwing back her head and trails her hands down the Doctor’s chest, playing with the hairs there. She jabs a nail into the soft skin where his sternum ends. “Mistress,” he winces.

“Doctor, Doctor, Doctor.” She cackles, witchlike. Grabs his hair, twists it in her hands, forces his face down on her breasts. Missy is warm and soft and the Doctor nuzzles her, brushes his lips across her nipples. “Doctor…”

The Doctor reaches down, squeezes her thigh and finds the hem of her stockings. She hums with pleasure as he slides them down, off her calf.

“Focus,” she says, and he laps at her breasts. “There you go. Keep that up.”

“Give me a second,” he mutters. He finds the buttons on his trousers, fumbles at them, kicks them off.

“No,” she complains. “Oh, come on, I liked that thing you did with your tongue—”

The Doctor laughs. “One second.” He leans away from her to hook his thumbs around the elastic of his pants to peel them off. They land on the floor and he returns to nuzzling Missy’s chest, earning himself giggles and high-pitched noises. “Okay?” he says, voice muffled.

“Very okay. You know…” She traces her finger in a circle across his shoulderblade. “Come up here.”

The Doctor crawls up, props himself above her on his forearms until their mouths are breaths apart, closes the gap. She smiles into the kiss. He leans back to admire her, the curls of her hair, the pink of her mouth, the brightness of her electric-blue eyes. “Your wish is my command.”

“Fuck me,” Missy breathes.

The Doctor kisses her again, attempts to keep himself from rutting against her leg, succeeds only through sheer force of will. She still tastes of whiskey. He knows the answer, but just in case: “Tell me you’re not drunk, Missy.”

“I’m not drunk.” Missy hooks her ankle around the Doctor’s calf.

“Tell me you’re not—”

“I’m not drunk, Doctor, I’m sober, I want you to fuck me.” The palm of Missy’s hand is feather-light across his cheekbone, caressing him with each syllable of her assurance. “I know what I’m saying. I offered it, I want it. Fuck me, darling.”

He kisses her, kisses her, kisses her—he thinks about eating her out, salty and musky, until she slips a hand between his thighs to stroke his cock and he gasps sharply against her lips. “You’re patient,” he manages.

“Fuck me,” she sing-songs. “Really. I want it.”

“One second,” the Doctor protests, brushing his thumb between her folds, as he shifts and finds his balance above her.

“Fuck me, fuck me—”

Missy lets out a satisfying gasp as the Doctor slides into her, a slow, measured motion, and finally quiets. The Doctor grasps for the soft sheets; her cunt is slick and warm and tight, and it takes all of his learned self-control not to ride her so hard she screams.

Her breathing settles, each set of inhales and exhales stretching out long and precise, and one hand settles on his shoulder, the other disappearing between her legs. “Get moving, Doctor,” she commands, prodding him.

The last chip of the Doctor’s restraint falls away, and he grunts, thrusts up into her. It’s been too long—it’s only been a week, but a week was too long. The Doctor should experience time in a nice, consistent fashion, considering, well, everything, but God, the seven days since he’s last seen her felt like eternity, and he’s become needy and horny and desperate. He rocks too fast, digging his fingernails into the sheets.

Missy abandons her clit and he feels her clutch his hipbones, forcing him to slow down, guiding him until he finds a steady rhythm. She winks at him, her hands falling away from him, and she throws back her head to moan, long and loud and exaggerated. “Good enough?” he pants.

“Oh, getting there,” she gasps. “Ve-e-ery much… getting there.”

“Fuck.” Maybe the week had been too much. He usually lasts longer, even with Missy writhing and making all kinds of obscene noises beneath him. This is all very young-and-horny-and-fucking-in-the-UNIT-supply-closet. He dips his head down, snags his teeth on Missy’s neck. “Fuck. I’m going to finish before you.”

She squeezes him closer, wrapping her thighs around him, laughs, and that’s it for him—he’s easy now, so easy—and he comes in her, moaning aloud against her neck. She’s so soft. How is she so soft?

He collapses next to her, his thoughts ordering and re-ordering themselves.

“All that’s all very well and good. But,” Missy gasps, interrupting him, bouncing on the mattress as she thrusts her hips erratically, her fingers pressed on her clit, her teeth teasing her bottom lip. “Help a girl out?”

“In a moment,” the Doctor assures. “My limbs aren’t—moving yet.”

“Tell them to hurry up, then.”

He forces himself up, grabs her thighs, pushing her hands away. She laughs, moves them to his head instead, pushing him down on her cunt. He is more than happy to tongue her swollen clit, and Missy’s grip on his hair tightens. “Doctor, Doctor, Doctor.”

Her thighs shake around him as he licks her, his name melting into wordless moans, and she comes hard with a cut-off shout. The Doctor keeps at it, drawing out her orgasm, until she finally pushes him away. “Oh.”

He finally relaxes, enjoying the fluidity of his limbs, settling between the covers. Drowsiness takes over. “Good?”

“Mmm.”

The Doctor feels himself drifting off. “Mmm,” he repeats.

“Don’t fall asleep,” Missy whispers, her lips against the shell of his ear, and he stirs, turns over. She nestles herself to his chest, wraps her arms around him. “You’re predictable,” she says, clicking her tongue.

“Dependable,” the Doctor corrects. He lets himself snuggle nearer as her breathing slows, falls into a precise tempo. Her hair smells like peaches, maybe mint; new conditioner. Nardole must have given it to her. “Are you tired?”

“Only a bit. Long day.”

“With all your prisoner activities?”

“Precisely.” She rolls onto her back and reaches to the ceiling, waggling her fingers. He mirrors the movement, clasps their hands together, aloft above the bed. “I miss the sky, Doctor.”

“I’m ignoring that.”

Missy lets out a long sigh, returning to her spot cuddling him, tracing circles across the bare skin of his chest. “I painted today. For your information. The piano, and then myself. Stained my least favorite blouse.”

“You have a least favorite blouse?” He’s more interested in seeing her self-portrait; despite himself, he wonders if it’s nude. (Over the years, he’s sketched her both with clothes and without. She is much more interested in seeing the finished product than sitting still for an extended period of time, and it makes her a very bad subject.) (He is overly fond of drawing her nonetheless.)

“Only because it’s stained.” She writes out her name in Gallifreyan sigils on his chest phonetically, one letter at a time, and then starts over in English, her finger stuttering halfway through the I as she yawns vigourously. “My God. _I_ might fall asleep.”

“Hypocrite,” he points out.

She winks. “Enthusiastically. Stay, won’t you?”

The Doctor wiggles deeper into the blankets, ruining Missy’s third S. “Only until Nardole comes back from the shop,” he says, though he’d prefer to spend the night, wake up with her fingers combing through his hair, her lips against his skin, humming something Taylor Swift or classical Russian. Nardole will almost certainly classify that as _unnecessary,_ and the Doctor doesn’t have the energy to put up with his squeaky protests.

“Fine.”

“Good night, dear. Sleep well.”

She shifts to look at him, crooking an eyebrow: “Dear?”

“Shut up.”

She lies back down, yawns. “Whatever. Wake me up when Nardole comes knocking for you. I’d like to see his face when you can’t find your belt.”

“He’s seen me naked before,” the Doctor says.

“That’s worse, actually.” She pauses, obviously intrigued. “Care to elaborate?”

“No.”

“Someday. Someday, you will.” She kisses the Doctor chastely on the lips, yawns again, stretches her legs out so she can tangle their ankles together. “Did you fuck him?”

He waggles his eyebrows enticingly. “I wouldn’t tell you.”

“He’s not your usual type, is he?” Missy props herself on an elbow, looking down at him, and smirks. “What _is_ your usual type? Jaw-droppingly gorgeous? Incredible in bed? Prone to fits of genius?”

“Weren’t you going to sleep?” the Doctor asks, narrowing his eyes.

“What do you see in him? Is this a River thing?” She makes a face. Missy has grown very good at seeming unaffected when she likes to, but her undercurrent of grief when she mentions River is impossible to ignore, even cloaked by contempt. “He’s not River, you know.”

“I know that.”

Missy sighs, drops back to the mattress. “I don’t fall for humans,” she insists.

“I know that,” says the Doctor again. “Go to sleep, Missy.”

She rubs her eyes, endearingly innocent, moves closer to him. “It was good to see you,” she says. “Come back more often.”

He hums an agreement. “Sleep well,” he says, and she closes her eyes.

* * *

He remembers old conversations, words passed between different lips: “I wish you had a name.”

“I do,” Missy had said, although she hadn’t been Missy, not then.

“No,” the Doctor had replied, his fingertips ghosting over Missy’s lips. (not Missy.) “Not like that.”

“I do,” Missy said—not Missy, not Missy, not Missy— “I do, I do, I do.” Promises. Wedding vows. _I do._

It had been more violent then. They had broken each other, over and over until neither could stand it any longer. They had clung to each other’s jagged pieces until blood leaked from their hands and legs and arms. They had cried oceans for each other. Drowned each other. Buried each other, unburied, dug up each other’s graves until their nails were destroyed, dirty, chipped away.

The Doctor watches Missy sleep, her lips parted ever so slightly, her brow crinkled, their casual telepathic link ever-present in his mind. He knows better than to be nostalgic for that grisly revelry. He’s earned this, Missy nestled up close to him, their casual warmth.

She murmurs something and nuzzles her head against his chest, and he finds her hand underneath the sheets, interlacing their fingers. She feels smaller than she really is, more fragile. The Doctor made a vow to keep the Vault’s occupants safe—he shouldn’t be surprised at this passionate protectiveness setting up camp in his chest, and yet it’s squirmy and strange and weird.

If Missy was awake, she would surely mock his obvious affection, but she is asleep, and he is safe to kiss her forehead. Her skin is ridiculously soft. He wonders if it was this soft before, and he’s never taken the time to notice, or if she’s moisturized more in the Vault. She has the time for it.

Who would she have been, if things had gone differently? He thinks about the life he left behind, and he lets himself pretend it would have gone all right if he had stayed. The quiet would have driven both of them mad.

“Darling…” Missy whispers, clutching at her blankets.

The Doctor cradles her jaw, peers at her face: she is still asleep, her eyelashes fluttering, her lips parted slightly. “Hello,” he says quietly. “I’m here. Are you—?” He means to say _okay,_ except it doesn’t come out. She isn’t, is she. Not many prisoners are.

“Mmmm.” She pushes her cheek into his palm, and he pats it, before withdrawing. “Don’t… leave.”

“Not going to,” he promises, and he thinks he means it.

His mobile buzzes on the floor, and he makes sure not to jostle Missy as he reaches over to pick it up. Nardole’s texted, _where r u. In ur office. Can’t find u._ The Doctor texts back awkwardly with one hand, _Vault. Don’t come looking._

Nardole sends an eye-rolling emoji.

The Doctor turns off notifications and sets his mobile on Missy’s side-table, next to a bookmarked copy of Agatha Christie’s _A Murder Is Announced_ and a bottle of perfume. He’ll deal with Nardole later.

For now, he is close to Missy. For now, he lets himself drift to sleep.


End file.
